May 18, 2008

Kate Zernike surveys the possibilities. Of course, it's a ridiculously inadequate argument for Hillary, but I've heard it over and over: If we don't elect Hillary, we'll have to wait too long to see a woman President and a lot of us won't get to have a woman President in our lifetime.

Zernike thinks the potential female candidates may "feel dispirited" by what happened to Hillary:

“Who would dare to run?” said Karen O’Connor, the director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University. “The media is set up against you, and if you have the money problem to begin with, why would anyone put their families through this, why would anyone put themselves through this?”

For this reason, she said, she doesn’t expect a serious contender anytime soon. “I think it’s going to be generations.”

Others say Mrs. Clinton had such an unusual combination of experience and name recognition that she might actually raise the bar for women.

In fact, the biggest point of agreement seemed to be that there is no Hillary waiting in the wings.

Except, of course, Hillary.

Oh, good lord, is this really the way it is? I think people were open to the idea of a woman President, but Hillary Clinton did not suit us. We don't want someone else like her. We want someone different. For starters, how about a woman who did not build her political career through her husband?

63 comments:

"Mrs. Clinton easily cleared the bar with many voters on her ability to be commander in chief, making it easier for people to see a woman in that role. Still, most people assume that the burden will fall on women to prove toughness — of a certain kind."

If she had showed the toughness to oppose the war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, we would be watching her run for her second term now.

Not any more than any male candidate having 'fire in the belly'. Clinton made too many mistakes but once she got over the whineyness she has shown admirable toughness.

Elizabeth Dole seems to be articulate, extremely intelligent, tough with tons of experience. When she stumped for her husband she always appeared too scripted and I wondered how quick she was on her feet. At 72 she would be considered too old.

If you listen to the various pundits, the media is against you if you're a women, a minority, or a republican. This means that they're against everyone in left in the presidential race. Something does not compute. Which is why I tend not to listen to anyone who blabs about the media being 'set up against you.'

The fact that HRC benefited from her husband's career wouldn't bother me so much if I felt she was actually qualified to serve as President. But there are many reasons she is unqualified to serve as President.

I won't vote for her because of her lack of ethics, which has been demonstrated time and time again during this campaign. Other reasons? She is willing to drag the Democratic Party through the mud for her own personal gain and has proven herself unable to run a campaign that pays its bills--at all, let alone on time. If she can't do that, how will she run the country?

I really can't imagine the US ever electing a woman president. It's just not that kind of country.

I'm mostly surprised that Clinton's gotten as far as she has. But let's face it, she was taken down by an empty suit. A very charming empty suit, but a guy's who's essentially a lightweight who's going for the brass ring about 12 years too soon.

If Clinton can't even get the nomination over a minor politician like Obama then really, I don't think there'll be a woman president for a good long time.

Michael, your theory does not account for the lack of preparation on the part of the Clinton campaign. She was prepared for a coronation, she was not prepared for a campaign that continued beyond Super Tuesday.

Don't forget that lots of seemingly promising male candidates don't fare very well once the primaries commence. In recent years, only two women have engaged in the primary process. That's not a large enough sample with which to make judgments.

There are quite a few female governors who seem to be successful. I'm not sure what it takes to get any of them to the national spotlight, but senior party officials (in both parties) need to start making sure that there are prominent roles for these women after they serve as governor.

Oh, good lord, is this really the way it is? I think people were open to the idea of a woman President, but Hillary Clinton did not suit us.

Us, meaning the media and pundits I'm guessing here. Funny more people voted for Hillary than either Obama and McCain, and the candidate polling 3rd on the electoral maps is the likely Democratic nominee.

“No woman with Obama’s résumé could run,” said Dee Dee Myers, the first woman to be White House press secretary, under Bill Clinton, and the author of “Why Women Should Rule the World.” “No woman could have gotten out of the gate.”

Women are still held to a double-standard, and they tend to buy into it themselves.

Do women really want to be held to Obama's lower standard? Dee Dee just echoed Geraldine's statement that Obama's race compensated for his pathetic resume. Do women really want to be given a pass on a shoddy resume because of their gender?

Yah, he's the AA hire. He only got the promotion because of his skin color ...

See what happens when you let girls play? They want to change the rules and complain boo hoo, boo hoo. Suck it up and fight to win like Hillary is doing. When you have some one who is mean enough to run and win, that's when we will have a woman President.

I mean Omarosa is at least as qualified as Barack Obama. She's black...she's on TV a lot...she has the audacity to hope...she doesn’t like typical white people....she's physically attractive....she can't bowl....did I mention that she's black.

I would actually have more confidence in her facing down Iran and North Korea. And just think:

R's: big unknown is the fallout from getting slaughtered this fall. I think this could lead to a fight to blame the loss on different factions. If the movement conservatives win, I'm not seeing female candidates rising to the top of the ticket. But I can imagine alternatives where Rice, Whitman, Linda Chavez, Gale Norton, and/or Susan Schwab become leaders, either of the GOP or a center-right third party.

Others say Mrs. Clinton had such an unusual combination of experience and name recognition that she might actually raise the bar for women.

In fact, the biggest point of agreement seemed to be that there is no Hillary waiting in the wings.

Thank God there are no more Hillary's waiting in the wings. How can she reaise the bar. She has absolutely no verifiable experience and her calim of thirty five years of public service is just that, a claim. There are many real qualified women who could be president and if they had thrown their hat in the ring they woukld have made Hillary look like the piker she really is.

There will be a woman president in the near future. A real qualified woman. Hell, my teenage daughter is more qualified than Hillary. She is smarter too.

Anyone else notice how Clinton was vilified for exaggerating the danger during her trip to Tuzla 10 years ago but Obama was given a virtual free pass for exaggerating his courage and the reaction when recently speaking to automobile executives?

Is that what you meant by ethics, Lisa? Is it fine with you that your candidate continues to intentionally quote out of context McCain's statements about Iraq and the economy? I bet you were thrilled when, at a meeting with senior citizens in Gresham, Oregon, Obama waved that tired and worn old red flag that John McCain would endanger their Social Security benefits. It's a little early for that one, a part of the Democrats' "October Surprise" campaign for over 60 years now. Gerard Baker of The Times of London has the best take so far on the Great Redeemer.

Money quote:

The idolatry of Mr Obama is a shame, really. The Illinois senator is indeed, an unusually talented, inspiring and charismatic figure. His very ethnicity offers an exciting departure. But he is not a saint. He is a smart and eloquent man with a personal history that is startlingly shallow set against the scale of the office he seeks to hold. It is not only legitimate, but necessary, to scrutinise his past and infer what it might tell us about his beliefs, in the absence of the normal record of achievement expected in a presidential nominee.

Funny quote:

You will not see a finer example of the genre than the cover story of this week's Newsweek, which was entitled “The O Team”. This rhapsodic inside account of Senator Obama's campaign reads a little like a cross between Father Alban Butler's Life of St Francis and the sort of authorised biography of Kim Jong Il you can pick up in any good bookshop in Pyongyang.

Mr Obama is portrayed throughout as an immanently benevolent figure. Not human really, more a comforting presence, a light source. He is always eager to listen to all aides of an argument, always instilling confidence in the weak-willed, resolutely sticking to his high principles and tirelessly spurning the low road of electoral politics. I stopped reading after a while but I'm sure by the end he was healing the sick, comforting the dying, restoring sight to the blind and setting prisoners free.

A woman president won't be there to represent women (the same could be said for a black president not being there to represent blacks) but to represent a broadly diverse nation... including a whole lot of men.

I know that a lot of people don't like Condi for VP and I sort of doubt she'd do it anyhow, but can you really see her presenting herself as having something to do with feminism and promoting women?

I can't.

And it's not that she's not every bit as "ill-behaved" as any militant feminist out there. But she doesn't seem to say, "feminism is what I'm about."

The idea that, say, within foreign policy there is a "feminist" viewpoint is silly. And worse, it suggests that women are very different from men.

Smart, ambitious women marginalize their own selves through feminism. Maybe that *will* mean that most of the most ambitious and smart women will not have the broad appeal necessary to win a presidential election.

But it's not, even for a moment, because people won't vote for a female.

Randy, the complaints about Obama and those who fawn over him would be a lot more convincing if they acknowledged, as I heard Michael Medved do the other day, that we've seen all this before -- with Jimmy Carter and with George W. Bush.

What's worse than a lousy one-term president? Being a lousy two-term president.

And for those who think that identity politics only matters for the Dems, remember that it was identity politics that sank McCain in S.C. 8 years ago, and identity politics that doomed the Romney campaign this year.

Peter, there is absolutely no comparison to the cult surrounding Obama today (as evidenced by that hagiographic Newsweek edition) and what went on in 1976 and 2000. As I expect Obama will be elected in November, we shall soon see just how much he reminds us of Jimmy Carter once in office, however.

I think that line of argument is self-pitying bullshit. It's basically saying, "Oh, guys, be gallant, give us our president."

There's Condi, there's the governor of Michigan -- oh wait, wasn't she born in Canada? Anyway, I think Hillary broke the ice by being completely, plausibly presidential -- she was just the wrong person. The talent, the presence, the confidence, just too much baggage. She showed that we can well imagine having a woman president, that a woman can be tough enough, and I think a whole next generation of candidates will be stepping up now, and will be taken seriously.

I agree Napolitano and Palin are both good choices for the future. And Pelosi is powerful, although perhaps not plausibly electable. But why are we forgetting probably the most powerful female senator besides Clinton, Senator Diane Feinstein of California? She is one of the more experienced and capable Democratic senators, but is seen as generally mainstream. And she got to her position on her own merits (with perhaps financial help initially from her wealthy husband).

I am a Republican, and even I would say that Diane Feinstein is the most likely successful female Presidential candidate currently, after Clinton.

I'm pretty sure your "independence of judgment" is supposed to be overridden by the President's wishes

Positioning herself as W.'s rubber stamp is not the best strategy for a Condi candidacy. Until and unless the electorate starts longing for the good old days under W., she should probably try to get back her old gig at the Hoover Institution.

Lots of things and more than we probably consider these days. But Bush's claim in 2000 was that he had executive experience comparable to that of the presidency that made him more qualified for the job, and that just ain't so. Texas governors are about the most toothless governors in the republic, a rubber stamp.

It's largely a moot point, though. I was responding to Randy's point that Bush's experience as governor was what got him the nomination in 2000. It was not; it was his name. Thankfully we're about to see the end of family ties as the chief factor in choosing our presidents.